Obama speech veers from economy to cover a laundry list of issues

President Obama focused much of his State of the Union address on the economy, but he spent roughly a third of his speaking time Tuesday night on a laundry list of issues, including climate change, gun control, immigration and ease of voting.

Mr. Obama also said the nation has a responsibility to address pay equity for women, cybersecurity, the ongoing housing slump, and ways to improve the nation’s high schools.

If Congress won’t act on climate change, he said, he would use his power as president to issues a series of executive orders to combat the effects of greenhouse gases.

The president argued that ending the scourge of mass shootings and violence by passing stricter gun control regulations is a pressing issue the country can’t avoid, along with changing our immigration laws to account for millions of illegal immigrants living in the U.S.

“Each of these [gun] proposals deserves a vote in Congress ,” he said. “Because in the two months since Newtown, more than 1,000 birthdays, graduations and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun.”

Trying to connect some of these issues back to the economy, Mr. Obama said the time has come to change the nation’s immigration laws.

“Our economy is stronger when we harness the talents and ingenuity of striving, hopeful immigrants,” he said. “And right now, leaders from the business, labor, law enforcement and faith communities all agree that the time has come to pass comprehensive immigration.”

Even before the speech began, scholars and strategists were urging the president to pare down his unwieldy second-term agenda and focus on spurring the economic growth that eluded him during his first four years in office.

“The problem with laying out an agenda, especially if you lay out a laundry list, is that nobody remembers anything and you can’t do everything,” said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow of economic studies at the Brookings Institution. “But if you lay out a few that are important to the future of the country and these are the four or two things that we’re really going to do, then you can be judged on that.”

The president also tried to bridge the divide between his inaugural address two weeks ago to his pivot to jobs and the economy. Mr. Obama’s inauguration speech focused mainly on equality and social issues instead of spurring job growth and reining in the nation’s deficits.

In his inaugural address, he devoted 19 words and one sentence to the economy and deficit reduction while giving social issues such as pay equity, same-sex marriage, immigration reform and gun control — what the president deemed “our generation’s task” — 358 words and 10 sentences and climate change 160 words and nine sentences.

Tuesday night, Mr. Obama structured the majority of his speech on jobs and the economy — mentioning one or the other at least 40 times.

Striking an aggressive and at times combative tone, Mr. Obama quickly addressed the ongoing budget battles, saying he desperately wants to find a way to avoid deep, across-the-board spending cuts that could rattle an unsteady economic recovery.

The so-called sequester would kick in March 1 with another budget deadline later that month to keep the government funded.

“The politics will be hard for both sides. None of us will get 100 percent of what we want. But the alternative will cost us jobs, hurt our economy and visit hardship on millions of hardworking Americans,” he said. “So let’s set party interests aside and work to pass a budget that replaces reckless cuts with smart savings and wise investments in our future. And let’s do it without the brinkmanship that stresses consumers and scares off investors.”

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About the Author

Susan Crabtree is an award-winning investigative reporter with more than 15 years of reporting experience in Washington, D.C. Her reporting about bribery, corruption and conflict-of-interest issues on Capitol Hill has led to several FBI and ethics investigations, as well as consequences for members within their caucuses and at the ballot box. Susan can be reached at scrabtree@washingtontimes.com.